'You won't find one person who's not happy for him' - Rory McIlroy major miss but praise for US PGA champion Aaron Rai
Back-to-back Masters champion Rory McIlroy missed out on back-to-back major season titles as he reflected on birdie and bogey final frustration around Aronimink – but expressed delight for US PGA Championship winner Aaron Rai with the message “you won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him”.
McIlroy recovered from a first-round 74 that left him outside the top 100 to enter Sunday’s closing appearance three off top spot on a packed leaderboard which featured a record 22 players within four shots of Alex Smalley, the previous US PGA field best 18 by comparison in 1993.
His wait for a seventh career major to become the most successful European player of the modern era must now extend to at least next month’s US Open as Rai broke a decade-long run of American champions by becoming the first winner of the Wanamaker Trophy in over a century.
Rai’s superb five-under 65 left a three-shot winning margin and improved by a memorable mark the 31-year-old's previous best major finish of 19th.
For McIlroy, a birdie at the second then wonderful putt to save another shot on 14 – as an ideal recovery to his bogey 13th – offered bright sparks in a challenge which failed to truly catch fire.
“I think not birdieing the two par-5s (9 and 16) and making the bogey at the drivable par-4 13th,” said McIlroy in a post-round television interview when asked to reflect on an afternoon of missed opportunities. “To me, I felt like I played the golf I needed to play the rest of the way.
"If I birdied the two par-5s and turned that 5 into a 3 on 13, the day looks very different.”
He added, on Rai, how “you won't find one person on property who's not happy for him” but that “looking back on today's round, I would say those three holes”.
When asked for his next step, McIlroy said “I'm going to take a couple weeks off and then Memorial (June 4-7) will be my next one”.
Rai, ranked 44th in the world, described adding his name to the list of major winners as "very surreal”.
He had the crowd cheering not least for an eagle on the ninth then outstanding 69-foot putt on the 17th green to go nine under.
“It's been a bit of a frustrating season, so to be stood here is definitely outside of my wildest imagination,” he said. “I think just really good consistency over the last few weeks in terms of practice, body's been feeling great and really enjoyed the course this week and continued to hold the rounds together as the week went on.
“Yeah, phenomenal to be stood here.
"Golf is an amazing game...it teaches you so many things and it teaches you so much humility and discipline and absolute hard work because nothing is ever given in this game no matter what level you're playing, no matter what course you're playing on.
“So I think it just teaches so many amazing life skills.”
On his birdie on 17, Rai admitted “definitely wasn't trying to hole that putt...the shadow of the pin gave a really nice line for probably the last 10 feet, so that definitely helped with the visual – but it was so long that it was just trying to put good speed on it and make a good putt and it just tracked extremely well on the last half, yeah, amazing to see that one go in.”